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| Welcome | Welcome to the April 2008 edition of the Credential Check Examiner! This month we will look at tips for process redesign, job satisfaction, changes to the FMLA and keeping young employees happy.
As always, please feel free to reply with your comments and suggestions!
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| Common Sense Tips for Process Redesign
| Basic change to established business processes can be an intimidating and exhausting undertaking for any organization. The most well-intentioned change initiatives can be derailed by ingrained habit, systems limitations, and concerns about turf and status. In part are a few common-sense tips, geared toward managers within established companies, for organizing and pursuing process change initiatives.
When determining your scope, take the broadest view you practically can of the process you hope to improve. Business processes typically represent a stream of work that flows across multiple organizational units within a company. Merely improving work practices within your department or group may produce some benefit for your organization but is unlikely to produce the significant and fundamental gains that will make the effort worthwhile. Try instead to enlist the interest of work teams and departments that precede or follow yours in the process. Your potential to fashion genuine and significant improvement increases with the breadth of the process you’re addressing.
Assuming that your target process crosses departmental boundaries, enlist the support of the management over those areas. In doing this, express the project in terms of a goal rather than a solution. Say, “I’d like to see us do ‘A’ more efficiently, and I’d like your help and insight” rather than positing a solution. Your fellow managers will be more likely to support your efforts if they believe that they can contribute to devising a solution rather than merely adopting yours.
Once you’ve secured management sponsorship, with your fellow managers, select change team participants that adequately represent the departments and work units involved. Make sure that all constituencies have a chance to contribute to the solution and air their concerns. Leaving out a constituency virtually guarantees resistance to your solution.
Also, when selecting your change team, choose participants from various levels in the organizational hierarchy. Avoid the temptation to pack the team with managers. In most businesses, intimate familiarity with current operational deficiencies, potential solutions, and how work is actually conducted resides on the front lines. Front-line employees suffer the most from operational flaws and have given the most thought to their remediation. Although strategic guidance from management is required in any change initiative, empowering front line employees to analyze problems and devise solutions will generally produce more imaginative and adoptable results.
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| Take Control of Your Job Satisfaction
| Are you working in a job that falls short of your ideal job, or are you working your ideal job but now find it more difficult to get through the day? If you answered yes to either of the above, you are not alone.
According to a 2007 Employee Satisfaction and Retention Survey, conducted by Salary.com, and nearly 12,000 employees and over 300 human resources professionals, over 60% of employees reported that they plan to look for a new job in the next three months. Moreover, the survey revealed that organizations are at risk of losing their most productive talent: those who have been in their position for three to ten years! The survey results further revealed that inadequate compensation leads the list of variables that make employees want to leave their current position. The results also suggest this explanation of inadequate compensation is actually a misconception, particularly when 50% of employees who felt inadequately paid, even though less than 22% were actually found to be paid below the fair market value for their job. This misconception has been titled by many in the human resources arena as the “grass is greener” syndrome, and illustrates that many employees lack insight into fair pay for their job, which ultimately may stimulate job search activity.
Additionally, other variables that contribute to job dissatisfaction include, but are not limited to: conflict between co-workers, conflict with supervisors, boredom or incongruency with one’s interests, lack of opportunity for promotion and fear of losing one’s job through downsizing or outsourcing.
Depending on the underlying cause of one’s dissatisfaction, there may be several ways to increase satisfaction. First, set new challenges to make the best of the job you have. This can include improving your overall job skills, developing or taking on a project that can motivate you and give you a sense of control, or get involved in mentoring a co-worker or intern. Second, beat the boredom by being cognizant of taking breaks throughout the day, cross-train in different areas that interest you, volunteer for something different, or ask your supervisor for a new challenge. Lastly, stay positive by stopping negative thoughts and reframing them by looking for the good in any bad situation, learn from your mistakes, and take gratitude in the things that are positive about your job. If you are dissatisfied with your current job situation, takes steps to restore meaning. By doing so, you will help manage your stress and experience the rewards of your respective profession!
Sources:
1) www.Salary.com, Employee Satisfaction and Retention Survey (2006/2007).
2) Mayo Clinic, www.mayoclinic.com (2007.)
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| | Changes to the Family and Medical Leave Act; What Employers Need to Know |  2008 has already seen changes to the Family and Medical Leave Act ("FMLA"). First, on January 28, the FMLA was amended to extend its benefits to military families. In February, the Department of Labor ("DOL") proposed new regulations to the FMLA. This addressed changes it believes are necessary based on the last 15 years of administering and enforcing the Act.
The new amendments to the FMLA provide two new types of leave for military families. First, eligible employees may now take FMLA leave to care for a member of the Armed Forces who has sustained a serious injury or illness while in the line of duty. The most significant difference as compared with regular FMLA leave, however, is that the eligible employee may take 26 weeks of leave in a 12 month period, rather than the 12 weeks afforded to other categories of leave. The amendment also extends eligibility to include the spouse, son, daughter, parent, or next of kin to the service member.
The second type of FMLA leave afforded to military families is the right to take 12 weeks of leave in a 12 month period for any "qualifying exigency" arising from a family member being on active duty or called to active duty status. Covered family members include the spouse, son, daughter or parent of the eligible employee.
The proposed regulations generally reflect court decisions that struck down certain original regulations, as well as clarify ambiguities and other areas of confusion that had become apparent through the DOL's administration of the law. The following points summarize some of the new regulations: - An employee who is voluntarily performing "light duty" work following FMLA leave is not using additional FMLA leave and his reinstatement rights may not be affected by the light duty assignment.
- Employees may voluntarily waive their FMLA rights in releases with their employers, and are not required to get DOL or court approval to do so. Employees are still prohibited from waiving prospective FMLA rights.
- Employers now have extended time to send eligibility and designation notices to employees. The regulations will change the time to five business days, instead of two. In addition, employers must now give an employee seven calendar days to cure a deficiency in a medical certification.
- Employees must now follow their employers' regular call-in procedures if they will be absent on FMLA leave, except in unusual circumstances.
- Employers may now communicate directly with the employees' health care providers for the purposes of clarification of a medical certification form.
- Employers may require that a fitness-for-duty certification includes the employee's ability to perform the essential functions of his position, as well as requiring certification when an employee attempts to return from intermittent leave when reasonable safety concerns exist.
- Employees who utilize leave due to a serious health condition must now visit their health care provider two times within 30 days of the incapacity, and at least two times per year for a chronic serious health condition.
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| | Quote of the Month | "The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem."
- Theodore Isaac Rubin top
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| | Keep Them by Keeping Them Happy: Young Employees Have the Future in Mind | New employees determine within 30 to 90 days of starting a new job whether or not they’ll stay, according to recent research quoted in a press release by Vurv Technology concerning their “2008 Talent Management Wish List Survey.” The survey reviews companies’ talent management priorities. The findings show that retention is the most critical concern for today’s organizations:
While attracting key personnel remains a concern, organizations increasingly are coming to understand the impact that keeping employees longer has on both direct and indirect costs savings, as well as work quality, productivity and employee morale. With a tighter labor market and less loyalty in the workforce it is essential for companies to have a strategy in place to engage and retain their top performers. That strategy starts with onboarding. Recent research shows “…organizations are reevaluating their onboarding process to better engage employees from day one.” What are you doing to engage and lock in your new employees?
Staffing firm Robert Half International paired up with Yahoo! Hot Jobs to examine the employment needs and perspectives of “Millenials,” or members of Generation Y. They interviewed 1,000 21- to 28-year-olds, the older bracket of the generation group. According to the companies’ press release on the study, “When asked to name their chief career concern, one-third (33 percent) of Gen Y workers polled cited compensation and benefits issues. The second most common response was finding and keeping a job, provided by 26 percent of those surveyed; career satisfaction ranked third, named by 23 percent of respondents.” Companies need to make sure to address these, the most crucial concerns young workers have. Amidst all the talk of economic crisis in our country, youths should be expected to be apprehensive about their finances, their benefits and the future. Robert Half International senior vice president and research director, Reesa Staten, said, "Gen Y workers want the best healthcare and retirement benefits employers can provide as well as defined career paths. To recruit these professionals, firms should make these programs easy to understand, promote them in detail on the company website and highlight them during the interview process." Younger workers need to feel secure in their financial position in order to feel secure with your company. Their sights are on the long-term, and planning for the future is important no matter what the age of the worker.
A Pensions and Investments (pionline.com) press release titled, “Fewer Employees Convinced They Can Retire Comfortably,” reads, “The percentage of workers who said they were very confident about having enough money to retire comfortably dropped to 18 percent this year from 27 percent in 2007, according to the 2008 Retirement Confidence Survey.” The recession raises questions about security, and people are unsure about the years to come and what they’ll hold. According to the press release, “The good news is that after years of false optimism, at least active workers are beginning to realize that their current level of retirement savings appears to be inadequate for living comfortably throughout their retirement years,’ said Jack VanDerhei, one of the study’s co-authors, in an interview.” Of course it’s better that people are actually considering the future then if they weren’t. Those far from retirement especially once had the dangerous luxury of an “Out of sight, out of mind” mentality. At least we can thank the recession for bringing this important issue into our consciousness.
Put simply: young people are more worried now than ever about their finances and financial security. The way to keep your employees is of course to keep them happy. Is it time you reassessed your company’s benefits packages?
Todd Palmer Diversified Industrial Staffing top
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| | Contact Information | If you are interested in obtaining additional information about these articles or the services offered by Credential Check Corporation, please contact one of the following individuals:
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